


prawn tempura, salted plums

by perpetualskies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Recreational Alien Drug Use, hard-working paladins taking one (1) well-deserved night off, umvy spice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 05:36:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20773409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetualskies/pseuds/perpetualskies
Summary: Shiro reluctantly collapses his holoscreen. “I think you should ask for your plumpstock back,” he says, leaning in and squinting at the substance. “This looks kind of disgusting.”Or, Keith gets his hands on some umvy spice. It’s building up to be a long, long night.





	prawn tempura, salted plums

**Author's Note:**

> Never posted in such a big fandom before (or, at least, for such a big pairing), so I'm a bit nervous! Also not sure if there is a fandom consensus on how to treat Shiro past season 2 (in the canon universe), so for the purpose of this fic he's just...Shiro. 
> 
> Title taken from Anna Kostreva's _Three Pathways to Get Anywhere_.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Comments are love ❤

Keith finds Shiro in the lounge, studying a holomap of an abandoned rebel base on the outskirts of the Saf’Ar system.

“Weren’t you supposed to be resettling refugees at the other end of the galaxy? Helping their ships get past that dark hydrogen nebula?” Shiro asks him, briefly looking up from the screen.

“Done and done,” Keith says, plopping down on the sofa next to Shiro. He rummages in his satchel, then produces a little transparent bag of what looks like doughy cumin powder, set with fractions of tiny ruby gemstones. “Might’ve crossed paths with an Unilu on my way back. He wanted me to marry his future grand daughter, but I managed to talk him down to just three spare containment units of Puigian plumpstock.”

Shiro reluctantly collapses his holoscreen. “I think you should ask for your plumpstock back,” he says, leaning in and squinting at the substance. “This looks kind of disgusting.”

“And it might as well be,” Keith replies proudly, grinning only wider. “This, dear Shiro, is concentrated umvy spice chew. And tonight, _we_ are getting _high_.”

Turns out that Keith has a little more convincing to do than excitedly waving some alien drug of unknown origin in front of Shiro’s face. Keith _did_ anticipate a certain degree of resistance, but _this_ was getting _frustrating_.

“Boooring,” he draws out, nudging Shiro’s thigh with the heel of his foot. “Boring, boring, boring, boring.”

“Well, I just don’t think we should do this,” Shiro says, ever the voice of reason. “We could be called upon. We might need to form Voltron. And who knows what those Unilu _really_ sold you.”

“First of all, they’d be really stupid to sell bad product to one of the paladins of Voltron. Second of all, the Galra haven’t engaged us in entire movements. It’s just one night, Shiro,” Keith stresses. “Don’t you think we deserve to have one night off? After all the hard work we’ve been putting in?”

Shiro still doesn’t look convinced. He sighs, then gets up. “Let me make a stop at the bridge first. See if Beta shift has any status updates. Then we’ll see.”

Keith flops back into the lounge cushions, deflated. “If you insist,” he says, stashing the umvy spice back into his satchel. “But don’t think I just travelled through some fishy nebula _and_ used a public toilet on a swap moon so that we could go to bed at zero nine hundred hours.”

Luckily, after one quick holohail to Pidge, Beta shift is very insistent on Shiro taking the rest of the night off. Owing Pidge favours is easy. It always comes down to some ion carburettor _this_ or non-thermal electron transmuter _that_, and those things tend to cross his path eventually. Much unlike having to ask favours of, say, Lance, who takes a near-sadistic pleasure in watching you pledge your last shred of dignity for something like the two (2) remaining Earth paper handkerchiefs.

Keith is lying on the floor because somehow that seemed the intuitive thing to do. Shiro preferred the bed, decidedly trying to make the least fool of himself. So far it’s been a whole lot of anticipation, and not an actual lot of alien chemistry doing—well, whatever it is supposed to be doing.

“I stand by my previous statement. I actually _like_ Puigian plumpstock. This just makes my teeth feel cold,” says Shiro.

“Nobody likes Puigian plumpstock,” Keith replies. “And you’re just bad at this, Shiro. You need to let it flow through you. See through the umvy spice’s eyes.”

“If you’re seeing through someone else’s eyes right now then I am definitely worried.”

“It’s more worrying if you aren’t, if you ask me.”

Keith hears Shiro sigh somewhere above him. The important part is that they took it, Keith thinks. The rest will work itself out. It better do.

It seeps through him slowly, decidedly, full of hidden potential. Keith feels heavy and light at the same time. Every shadow in the room has a curious edge to it. He looks up to Shiro sitting on the bed and finds him with his eyes closed, smiling a little, his hands linked in his lap. Keith wouldn’t put it past him to have just fallen asleep, the absolute grandpa. Wake up to Alpha shift and comment on what a good night’s sleep he’s had, like nothing even happened.

“Shiro,” Keith says. “Hey, Shiro.” He nudges him in the shin.

“Hm-mhh.”

“You awake?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The _Hermes_ is lighter, more agile, and clearly superior to the _Calypso_ in any way that matters.”

It takes Shiro a good two ticks to protest. That’s how Keith knows it’s working.

The first wave is languid, not much of a wave at all, really, more like the slow onset of a steadily increasing camera filter.

They get very thirsty very suddenly. Then a little bit itchy. Then comfortably warm all over. Keith crawls into bed with Shiro, puts his head in his lap. Shiro lets his fingers card through his hair, slowly, methodically. Keith’s brain feels like cotton candy. His mind drifts to Earth, afternoons spent kicking up dust in the desert, the days coming to a slow end in the shadow of Shiro’s hovercraft. He smiles remembering Shiro’s hand in his hair, just like this. He cannot tell if this was three quintants or three deca-phoebs ago.

The second wave is grappling with reason, and also appetite.

“Shiro?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think there’s still some of that bloato fruit pie left that Hunk made?”

“I don’t know, but I could really go for a milk shake. Do you think Kaltenecker is still awake?”

“It’s a cow, Shiro.”

“What, and cows don’t sleep?”

“Maybe they don’t need to? In space? I’ve never seen her sleep.”

They contemplate this for a moment. Keith’s stomach rumbles.

“Prawn tempura,” Shiro says. There’s real longing in his voice. “Salted plums.”

“We could make cream though!” Keith says, excited. “For the bloato fruit pie! Do you know how to make cream?”

Shiro shrugs. “My Galra hand probably does.”

“Woah,” Keith says, mind suddenly blown. “You’d be so good on a cooking show. _Slice Capades with Takashi Shirogane_. Maybe you and Zarkon could duel each other in a bake-off.”

“We’d need a kitchen clock for that,” Shiro reminds him, smiling down at him fondly. “And a ladle.”

“You’re right,” agrees Keith, sighing, turns his cheek into the palm of Shiro’s hand.

The third wave is desire, pre-emptive.

“Do you think we should have sex?” Keith asks. He’s been kind of turned on for a while now, but in a surprisingly low-key way—a distant possibility teetering on the event horizon of his mind, like getting fries and milkshakes after midnight.

“Naked?” Shiro specifies.

“Is this how we usually do it?”

Shiro frowns. “We definitely have sex,” he states. Keith nods. “And we definitely have clothes.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees.

The fourth wave brings with it a lot of difficult decisions.

“Slav, Lotor, Bii-Bo-Bi. Go!”

“Okay,” Shiro says, stroking his chin and staring intently at the ceiling. They’re on the floor, their legs above them, stretched against the wall panel. “Be frozen in a cryotube for 10 000 years with Slav. Repopulate a colony with Lotor. Wormhole Bii-bo-bi.”

“What?” Keith protests. “You can’t _possibly_ wormhole Bii-bo-bi!”

Shiro turns to him, face grave. “I’ve made my choice, Keith. The destiny of the colony depends on me. Besides, it would simply make much more sense to be frozen with Slav, considering he is _already_ 10 000 years ahead of us.”

Keith looks dejected, but nods. “I suppose you are right. Poor Bii-bo. I hope he doesn’t end up on one of those terminal age exoplanets.”

They sigh. They each take another slice of bloato fruit pie.

The fifth is anthropological extrapolation.

“Shiro, _please_. Have you _seen_ the shape of those zaiforge cannons? This entire war is just about proving who’s got the biggest space dick out there, if you ask me. Also, the Galra male-to-female commander ratio is abysmal.”

“Is that what we’re doing here? Proving we’ve got the bigger space dick?” Shiro asks.

“Personally, I consider Voltron to be more of a genderless entity,” says Keith. He rolls over onto his stomach, lets his hand slide in between their bodies. Shiro makes a strained noise when Keith drags the heel of his hand _down_.

Shiro’s eyes are hooded like this, and dark, so very very dark.

The sixth wave is desire.

“I’m still not sure about the clothes,” Keith says.

“Me neither.”

“Maybe keep some of them on?” Keith asks.

“Sounds reasonable,” Shiro agrees. “Not these, though,” he adds, tugging at Keith’s boxers.

“Yeah, no,” Keith says, helpfully lifting his hips, “definitely not these.” He feels like he’s been hard for quintants. Shiro’s mouth feels impossibly far away, and also like the only thing that makes sense anymore.

“Shiro,” he says, a little laboured, “you need to, like—”

“I need to what, Keith?” Shiro asks, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He’s topless. Keith’s gaze strays to the scar tissue on Shiro’s right biceps, momentarily distracted. He swallows.

“Would you—” he starts, eyes finding Shiro’s again. “—please let me fuck your mouth? _Please?_”

Keith’s head spins watching Shiro go down to his knees.

The seventh feels almost as if they got it out of their system, except that both of them are squinting, not necessarily at each other, and trying very hard to remember the code to Shiro’s sleeping quarters back on Earth.

“I _told_ you to write it down somewhere, Shiro!”

“Isn’t that the opposite of what you’re supposed to do?”

Keith pauses for a moment, squinting harder. “Is it?” he says, uncertain.

“Tell you what,” says Shiro. “When we get back, I’ll tell them the Galra wiped that part of my memory. Stress the part about being taken intergalactic prisoner of war. Wave my cyborg prosthetic for emphasis. They’ll _have_ to give me a new code.”

“Whoa,” Keith says. “You’re hot _and_ smart.”

Shiro winks at him. “They don’t call me Takashi Shirogane for nothing.”

The eight has Shiro say, “It really _is_ inverted,” looking up at the Altean swimming pool splashing overhead.

The ninth wave is all the energy they took to the pool, exuding.

Keith feels like someone drastically readjusted the gradient around them. Taujeerian dub-step is blasting from the ceiling. They’ve found the Castle to be surprisingly well equipped to host an impromptu space rave—although maybe not that surprising, considering all the things they’ve heard by now about Coran’s grandfather. Shiro dances. Shiro fucking _dances_. If Keith had known that that was on the table, he’d have stopped by one of those swap moons way earlier, let those Unilu take him for everything he got.

“I didn’t know you could..._do_ that,” Keith yells over the music, dumbfounded.

“What, have fun?” Shiro yells back. There’s sweat glistening on his chest, red in his cheeks. He looks like an alternate reality version of himself, and Keith _loves_ it.

“No, I—” Keith watches his hips, transfixed, his entire body moving with such sinuous precision.

Shiro grins, then pulls him in, presses his lips right to Keith’s ear. “I used to be in a band, too, if that helps,” he says.

Oh, it _definitely_ does.

The tenth wave is desire, renewed.

Keith feels himself tremble all over. He’d never come like this; not necessarily harder, just. The way he almost felt it fire across his synapses, the way it spread along rewired pathways he didn’t even know he had. Shiro is still moving in him, that slower, more punctuated drive of his hips that tells Keith he is really close. That, too, is different: when Shiro comes, it seizes Keith’s entire body, seeps into his system, makes him light up with his release. A bit like the rush they all feel upon forming Voltron, amplified, and with traces of Shiro’s come along the inside of his thighs.

Shiro presses their foreheads together, trying to steady his breathing. Opens his eyes and smiles, kisses Keith long and sweet, catching his breath a little still.

Keith locks his arms around his neck, content to stay exactly where he is, for as long as anyone might let him. All that he wants is sleep, entire eternities of it, right here in Shiro’s arms. He frowns when Shiro moves down and out of his line of sight.

Then he feels Shiro’s lips on him, his tongue in and around his navel, licking him clean, thorough and responsible to a fault. Keith squirms, a little cold, a little embarrassed; feels both a surge of tenderness, and the need to cover himself up.

“It tastes different,” Shiro says when he moves back up, almost matter-of-factly, wiping with his thumb at the corner of his mouth.

Keith blushes hard, does not know what to say.

They’re sleepy, done for, thoroughly exhausted. The first couple of hours on the umvy spice had been marked by random bursts of energy, releasing with the kind of concentrated pressure you feel emerging from a wormhole. Now it’s just ripples of content, a steady glow that makes everything seem softer, less acute.

They’re on the floor again; somehow that seemed imperative. Keith made a nest for them out of the blankets, cushions, and one of those fluffy squeaky things that followed Pidge back from the trash nebula. It chirps contentedly when Shiro lets it burrow into his side.

Earth seems impossibly far and also immeasurably closer. Shiro feels closest of all. Keith presses against his chest, and sighs.

“Thank the Ancients we didn’t have to form Voltron in this state,” he admits.

Shiro chuckles. “Who knows, we might have unlocked powers we didn’t even know existed within it.”

“Yeah, like giggling at a fleet of Galra cruisers. That’d have shown them. Or frantically rummaging through the space pantry.”

Shiro tightens his arms around him, presses a slow kiss to his temple. “Hunk will kill us once he finds out about that pie,” he says after a moment.

Keith sighs again. “He definitely will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/desafiar_)!


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